


Branded

by edenforest



Series: I feel you in my dreams [6]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Attempted Murder, F/M, Fluff, Pre-Relationship, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Unresolved Sexual Tension, gallya, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-03-17
Packaged: 2018-05-27 05:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6270544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenforest/pseuds/edenforest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Illya lay on his back. He had a sheet as a blanket that covered his legs. His hand was bent on his stomach. His breathing was deep and steady, the breathing of a person who didn’t know he was about to be murdered.</p>
<p>Gaby stood there, listening and pondering her options. She felt like she had already won. The Valkyries were definitely coming to get her after this. They would bow to her in Valhalla.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Branded

**Author's Note:**

> Just to let you know; there is an end in this series. I think we are about half way through. And it’s not like I’m only deciding that I am going to write that number of parts. The parts are already mostly written and there is an ending. I have actually thought this through, not just scribbling away because I don’t know when to stop. Now you know.

”What are you suggesting then?” Napoleon asked and turned to Gaby who leaned on the table instead of sitting down.

“Maybe we should just ambush him in his room,” Gaby said and shrugged her shoulders, “while he is asleep.”

“That is very bad idea,” Illya said. “There are lot of risks in that. You do not know how well the mark is sleeping. Or is he sleeping at all.”

“I could be quiet enough,” Gaby claimed.

“Oh, you would go?” Illya snorted and looked like Gaby had said something extremely stupid.

“Yes,” Gaby said and shook her head from confusion. “Don’t you believe that I could do that?”

“No,” Illya said bluntly.

“I’m light and agile,” Gaby estimated herself fairly. ”I could do that.”

“I am not saying you are not all that,” Illya said. “But it is still a bad plan.”

“I think you could do that,” Napoleon suspected.

“Thank you,” Gaby sighed, turning back to face Illya and looking displeased. “It’s nice to know that somebody here trusts my abilities.”

“It is not a matter of trust,” Illya pointed out. “It is hard. You would get caught. I am not saying any one of us should do that.”

Gaby huffed and crossed her arms on her chest. She was annoyed even if Illya mostly doubted the plan, not her quietness. “Maybe I will sneak in here at night and stab you in the chest,” she muttered. “That’ll show you.”

“You could not sneak up on me,” Illya said with a mocking smile on his lips.

“Excuse me?” Gaby asked slowly. Her hands moved on his hips and her eyes squinted to Illya. “You don’t think I could ambush you?” she hissed. It bothered her more that Illya doubted her abilities to surprise him than a stranger.

“No,” Illya said and leaned on the couch. “You could not.”

“I’m sure I could,” Gaby said tightly and lifted her chin. “You would never see it coming.”

Illya shook his head. ”You would not be quiet enough. I would wake. You would get caught. There is no reason to fight over this. You just could not do it.”

Gaby’s jaw tightened when she gritted her teeth. ”I would get you so easily,” she claimed with all of her confidence. “I would stab you in the chest before you could stop me.”

“I would like to see you try,” Illya sighed and shook his head.

Gaby huffed, frustrated. She glared at Illya and then stormed out of the room.

“You will pay for that,” Napoleon suspected as he got up from the couch.

Illya rolled his eyes. “How?” he asked, bored. “Do you think she is going to try to stab me in the middle of the night?”

“Probably,” Napoleon nodded. “I will see you in morning,” he said by the door before leaving the apartment. “If you live through the night,” he added, grinning, and got an annoyed frown from Illya in return.

 

***

 

Gaby moped in her apartment. It was a white stone house, right outside of the city. Illya stayed at the downstairs big apartment like a CEO should. Napoleon, who allegedly owned the house, stayed at the bigger of the two upstairs apartments. Gaby, who was a simple secretary, had the smallest apartment in the upstairs. They had a garden, and red geraniums growing on the windowsills.

Gaby’s tiny apartment consisted of one room and the tiniest bathroom she had ever seen. Now she walked back and forth across the whole apartment. She didn’t need that many steps to do so.

She changed into her pajamas and went to bed. It was warm. First she kicked her duvet off her. Then she removed her pajama pants. Gaby couldn’t fall asleep. She wanted to think that it was the warm air, but she knew it was Illya. She couldn’t sleep as long as Illya was there, downstairs, mocking her and thinking she couldn’t ambush him. Gaby was sure that she would sleep like a baby if she knew that Illya was lying down there, knife thrust up to its hilt in his chest.

Gaby got up and went to the kitchen nook. She went through the drawers and searched for the perfect knife. When she found the right one she returned to the bed. She rested the knife on top of her chest and waited. Minutes ticked by, but Gaby didn’t mind. She was patient. At three AM she carefully rose to sit and placed her toes on the floor quietly as a mouse. She pondered her options and returned to the kitchen to change her weapon. Then she opened the window and looked down.

She dropped her knife out on the grass and climbed out. It wasn’t that easy, but this way she didn’t have to click open any locks, walk down any stairs, sneak past Illya’s door. This way he wouldn’t hear her coming. So she climbed out of the back of the house, scratched her elbow, searched for her knife in the grass in the moonlight and walked around to the front of the house and across the garden.

Her bare feet made slight swishing sounds against the grass, but no more. She grinned when she saw that Illya’s window was open. People here left their windows open at night when it was this warm and Gaby was happy that Illya was making the house seem as normal as possible. She moved a little wooden bench under the window and stood on it. Gaby put the knife in her mouth and pushed her leg between the geraniums at the windowsill into the sink inside. She took a hold on the window frame with her fingertips and bent herself inside. Gaby squatted on the kitchen counter and the smoothly and slowly slid to the floor.

Carefully Gaby took the knife from her mouth and glanced at the window. She nodded to herself, pleased. She had thought that this part may have been where she would mess up and make noise, but everything had gone smoothly. She was inside. Quietly Gaby crept across the kitchen and the living-room and went to the bedroom. There was enough moonlight coming from the windows that Gaby saw where to go and didn’t bump into anything. She stood in the middle of the bedroom, squeezed the knife and breathed evenly and silently.  Illya was sleeping in the bed, completely unaware of her. Gaby didn’t think many people could sneak up on Illya. She was sure that his brain recognized her gait or scent and gave him a signal to continuing sleeping. She was only Gaby, not a threat.

Gaby grinned. She wasn’t usually a threat. This night she was.

Illya lay on his back. He had a sheet as a blanket that covered his legs. His hand was bent on his stomach. His breathing was deep and steady, the breathing of a person who didn’t know he was about to be murdered.

Gaby stood there, listening and pondering her options. She felt like she had already won. She was standing next to Illya and the superspy hadn’t even awakened. Gaby looked at him. She moved her hand in the air and evaluated where she should stab. Part of her wanted to run to the bed, jump in the air from the bedframe and lunge at him like a samurai. But Illya would wake before she could hit him. She took her time; decided in which direction she would approach the bed and Illya, where to hit, where to slash. It was more fun than she had thought. She was almost giddy. She would forever be the girl who slayed the mighty Illya Kuryakin. Gaby felt like that was a deed worthy of a medal. Maybe Napoleon would give her one. Bards would write songs about her labors. The Valkyries were definitely coming to get her after this. They would bow to her in Valhalla.

Gaby shook the nonsense out of her head; she needed to focus on the mission ahead.

When Gaby’s plan was made she stepped next to the bed quietly; she knew she had to be fast. Illya would wake up as soon as she touched him.

Gaby took one last breath before the strike and made her move. Her hand stabbed according to her plan and it woke Illya as she had suspected. His hand grabbed her wrist so quickly that Gaby didn’t manage anything more than sharp gasp before she was already in the bed and pinned against the mattress, Illya’s knee pressing her other arm.

”It’s me!” Gaby shrieked. She knew that she needed to let him know who she was before Illya pressed his elbow between her collarbones and set his weight on there and made a low crunch happen. Her yell made Illya freeze for a few seconds.

“Что за блядство?” he growled when he realized who he had pinned against the bed. He yanked the night lamp’s chain so hard that the lamp fell to the floor and illuminated from there. It made all the shadows grew long and crooked; they grew on the walls like old trees and spread on the ceiling.

Gaby was in his bed. His knee had pinned her other arm down. He moved that because he feared he might hurt her. Illya’s knees were on both sides of her hips and he was gritting his teeth.

Gaby hadn’t ever seen Illya looking so angry at her. Other people yes, but never at her. For someone who had just awakened, he looked quite alert too, but he was batting his eyes more than normally to get himself completely awake. His chest was bare and his hair a mess.

“Do you have any idea how stupid that was?” Illya growled angrily. “I could have killed you. What you are doing here?”

”I did yell that it was me,” Gaby pointed out, slightly out of breath from the scare.

“’Me’ is not telling who you are,” Illya said callously.

“It worked,” Gaby remarked.

“What are you doing here?” Illya demanded again. “Do you have death wish?”

“No. I came here to kill you, as I said I would,” she announced and lifted her chin even if she was lying in the bed under Illya. “And I succeeded at it.”

“What?” Illya demanded.

”I climbed in from the kitchen window, walked through the whole apartment and stood next to the bed several minutes before attacking you. And you didn’t have a clue that I was here,” Gaby explained. “Mr. Superspy slept through that and let me take my time and decide where to stab him.”

“You did not stab me,” Illya had to point out.

Gaby lifted her hand up. Her brows were raised high and she had a smug expression on her face. Illya grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand near his face. He frowned and yanked a permanent marker from Gaby’s hand.

“It is a pen,” he snorted.

“I had a knife originally,” Gaby told him. “But if I actually killed you I couldn’t gloat, so I needed to change the weapon. I only needed to prove that I could kill you if necessary.”

“But you did not…” Illya’s sentence died out when he looked down at his bare chest. There was a black line on his chest, right above his heart. He looked back to Gaby, who had an arrogant grin on her lips. She was still pinned under him, her hair spread across his pillow.

“You are dead,” she gloated.

Illya frowned and took a deep breath. He didn’t want to admit it, but Gaby had succeeded. With a real knife she would’ve killed him, stabbed straight through to the heart. He was annoyed.

And somewhat impressed.

Gaby set her palm on Illya’s naked stomach and pushed him off her. Her hand lingered. Illya lifted his knee off the bed and rolled to sit down. Gaby rose to her knees in front of him.

“Do you know why I was able to do that?” she asked.

“How?” Illya asked tightly. He yanked his sheet from under Gaby; she staggered and had to take a hold on him. When her hands grabbed his shoulders and she leaned suddenly closer Illya’s head was instantly full of images of Gaby, her naked skin and arching back. He pushed the thoughts quickly out of his head.

“Because you thought that I couldn’t do that, you assumed that I wasn’t a threat,” Gaby told him and sat on top of her bent legs. “I’m sure your highly wired super brains sensed me coming through the apartment, but they probably just noticed that it was my gait and my scent and you needed not to wake up.”

Illya frowned even more.

“I killed you because your own brain betrayed you,” Gaby announced arrogantly and poked Illya’s chest with her index finger. “From now on you can remember me as the girl whose good grace is the reason you are still alive,” she said and her finger pressed against the black line. “Gaby Teller, who let you live. You should tattoo that somewhere on you so that when people see you naked they know who to thank for that,” Gaby grinned.

Illya wasn’t sure that Gaby’s comment of people seeing him naked and wanting to thank her for it was a compliment. She acted like it was. She looked at him like it was. He pushed her hand away and rubbed the black line with his fingers. He was still glaring at Gaby’s grin. Illya was annoyed, he didn’t like to lose. But then he was also very proud of her success. He wanted to tell that to her, but she was smug enough already. She had difficulties choosing where to look. Her eyes roved over his bare skin constantly even when she clearly was trying to avoid that. It made Illya´s nostrils flare. It would’ve been so easy to pull her against him and kiss her. In Illya’s mind Gaby’s hand would slide on his neck and she would sigh against the kiss. She would push him against the bed and straddle him. Her hands would be everywhere. Her lips would be everywhere.

“That tattoo seems too much trouble,” Gaby decided suddenly. She pushed Illya on the bed, pressed her knee on his arm like he had done to, grabbed the marker and opened the cap with her teeth. She started to write on Illya’s chest.

”Are you serious?” he muttered. He craned his neck to see what Gaby was writing. Gaby pushed his head back against the bed and Illya rolled his eyes. He could at any time get out from under Gaby easily. But he felt like Gaby deserved to mark him. It was only ink, it would wash off eventually. And Illya didn’t want to hurry Gaby away from on top of him. Her knee was pinning him to the bed and her eyes stared at his chest. She glanced at his face briefly and smiled.

“Did you say you came in from the kitchen window?” Illya asked when he looked at Gaby’s bare thighs. “From outside?”

Gaby nodded. “I climbed out of my window and in from yours.”

“Without any pants?” Illya asked amusedly.

“Who would see me there?” Gaby wondered. “It’s night. And I have underwear on,” she pointed out. “It’s not like I walked across the garden with my bottom bare. I have my limits.”

The corners of Illya’s mouth twitched.

Gaby finished and put the cap back on the marker. She hummed approvingly at Illya’s chest. Actually Gaby was surprised that he had let her stay there and write as she pleased. Gaby moved her knee from Illya’s arm and set some of her weight on his hips. Illya rose up to lean on his elbows and looked down to see what Gaby had written. There was her name in big letters across his chest.

Gaby set her index finger under Illya’s chin and lifted his head up. “You have been branded, Kuryakin,” she announced. “Your Russian ass belongs to me now.”

Illya stared at Gaby. He wasn’t going to admit that he didn’t mind being branded by Gaby. He liked belonging to her. He felt like he had already belonged to her for some time now. She could ask him to do anything and he would do it. Right now, when Gaby was straddling him, he would bring down regimes for her, he would make love to her until the morning in any way she wanted, and he would spill all the KGB’s secrets if she asked. But Gaby didn’t ask for anything. She just sat on his hips, that little smug and sexy grin on her lips, the warped shadows behind her, on the illuminated walls.

Gaby felt the warmth Illya was radiating. It wasn’t like the warm air which touched her skin and stayed there. Illya’s warmth flowed through her and would make her melt like wax if she wasn’t careful. She knew she should get up and leave, but instead her index finger rose again, and she traced the letters on Illya’s chest. She liked to think that she was looking at her own name she had written, but she knew she really stared at Illya, she touched the markings because she wanted to touch him. There was no other reason. She lifted her eyes to Illya’s face. It would be much easier to leave if Illya didn’t look at her the way he did. He had that infuriatingly soft look in his eyes. Gaby couldn’t understand how somebody even transformed himself from that serious and stiff agent to this person who looked at her like she was the most wonderful thing in the world. That’s how Illya’s gaze sometimes felt. It made her knees weak and she could feel it in her belly.

If they weren’t on a mission, if they didn’t have to get up early, Gaby would’ve stayed there; sitting on him until something happened. But they were on a mission and they both knew it. So Gaby grinned. “You should go back to sleep. You need to rest in case some crazy person breaks in here and tries to stab you,” she said, lifted her chin, and pushed aside all the tension to wait for some other day.

“You are already here,” Illya muttered. “Hard to imagine anybody else doing something that stupid.” He rubbed the black text on his chest.

Gaby chuckled while she got off Illya and crawled up from his bed. She lifted the lamp from the floor back to the night stand. “Sweet dreams,” she sighed and turned to leave. She grinned over her shoulder as she walked away.

Illya grunted quietly after her. He watched her walking away. Her pajama shirt covered her bottom only barely. He reached to turn the night lamp off and flopped to lie on the bed. He could hear the door opening and closing and he closed his eyes. Illya jerked up when the marker Gaby threw from the bedroom door hit his chest.

“Double dead, Kuryakin,” Gaby announced by the door. “You should really step up your game,” she gloated.

Illya flopped back to the bed and rubbed the text on his chest. He could hear Gaby walking again to the front door. She was chuckling at her own cleverness. The door opened and closed and this time Illya could hear her footsteps on the stairs.

”Сумасшедшая женщина,” he muttered and shook his head. He couldn’t believe Gaby had actually broken in and managed to stab him. His lips curved into a smile and his forehead smoothed. She was maybe crazy, but Illya had started to think that maybe she was his crazy. And he liked that. He belonged to her and she belonged to him and that was how things were supposed to be. He set his hand on his brand.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Beta thanks to MollokoPlus :)


End file.
